Canzano: If an Oregon State golf cart turns over and no one notices, is that a good thing?

Ross William Hamilton/The OregonianLyle Moevao was the driver of an Oregon State golf cart that overturned with two of his former teammates on board.I am not surprised that three football players at Oregon State University jumped into an athletic department golf cart that didn’t belong to them a couple of months ago.

Those three, in order, now go by: Dumb. Dumb. And dumber. No other way around it. And Olander, who still has eligibility, and should be suspended.

But what is most surprising about the incident is that the players allegedly committed the crime: A) after having a front-row seat for a series of well-publicized debacles at their rival university; and B) that it mostly got ignored afterward.

Turns out that when you go to a Las Vegas Bowl (and not a Rose Bowl) and don’t have a high-profile sneaker donor backing you, that most of us are not interested in the news unless its big stuff. And let’s not make this about OSU having clean hands under Riley, because we all remember run-ins with a taxi-cab driver, a sheep and a National Guardsman.

This is about OSU’s reduced profile now.

Oregon had a ridiculous string of embarrassing incidents that began with LeGarrette Blount throwing a punch at the end of a game and culminated months later with a perp walk that featured the Ducks starting backfield from the Rose Bowl.

That’s what we’ll all remember from coach Chip Kelly’s rookie season.

Will the golf cart even register?

I’m convinced that the national media didn’t much care about the golf cart not because it’s a golf cart, but because Oregon State isn’t the one being considered for a preseason Top 10 ranking. And the Beavers aren’t the ones with the uniforms everyone talks about, or the ones marketing themselves nationally.

This is an important lesson for both programs.

If Oregon didn’t know it was in a fish bowl, it must certainly know now. The Ducks should not greet this realization with whines about people looking their way. You created the fish bowl, you asked people to look, so go do great things and reap the rewards from all the magnification you’ve caused.

Meanwhile, Oregon State should not be giddy at the idea that its golf cart incident was greeted with a shrug. Moevao and Kristik were former stars. This would be big news at Oregon. Also, there were two minor in possession of alcohol incidents among the Beavers players in recent months that were noted for the record but not much talked about.

This is a troubling development for OSU because if you’re not getting noticed when you’re making bad news, you should realize that you’re not going to receive the full benefit of your good news either.

The old management of the Trail Blazers used to complain about the fish bowl. They were woefully ignorant. New management could probably teach a seminar on the wonderful benefits that come with having the focus on you when you’re caught doing the right thing. What we’ve learned from the Blazers and the recent incidents at Oregon and OSU is that Kelly’s program has an opportunity available to it that Riley’s does not.

Oregon should go do good things, and understand that the marketing advantage it has created can't be easily duplicated. The country is interested in the Ducks. They're relevant. And if the program can avoid having the off-field issues and keep winning games, that advantage is going to become evident.

Oregon State receiver James Rodgers did a wonderful thing this week in flagging down a weaving driver who was falling asleep at the wheel of a vehicle on the freeway. It ended up a feel-good story, but had he happened to suit up at Texas, Florida or USC, that story would have been turned into instant legend. Instead, it became a nice regional story that was missed by a lot of folks.